


stepping back to golden days

by Hoothootmotherf_ckers



Series: annual fall fluff fics [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Like the fluffiest, M/M, pure self-indulgent fall shenanigans, this is adorable as hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 12:38:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20976017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoothootmotherf_ckers/pseuds/Hoothootmotherf_ckers
Summary: The start of fall means one thing to Magnus and Lucretia (and like, every other inhabitant of Raven's Roost) - it's time for the annual Phandalin Harvest Festival. It's time for fall shenanigans.





	stepping back to golden days

“Lucretia. Lucreeeetia. Creeeesh,” Magnus whines, knocking on his sister’s bedroom door. “Wake uuuuup!”

“Oh, I’m awake,” Lucretia calls out airily. Magnus takes that as an obvious permission and throws open the door. 

Lucretia is sitting across the room at her desk, but as he enters, she swivels around in her desk chair with an air of majesty. There is an entire fucking pumpkin in her lap, akin to how a stereotypical villain might hold a white fluffy cat. Somehow, it only increases her gravitas. 

“Did you _really_ think I’d forget the date?” she asks, almost indignant. Magnus just grins. 

“C’mon, if we want the good ones we’ve gotta go now! _It’s fall it’s fall it’s fall let’s gooo!_” he almost yells, dragging Lucretia out of her room, still in her rolling chair. Magnanimously, she lets him. And as the sun rises warmly over a little townhouse in Raven’s Roost, Magnus and Lucretia Burnsides drive to the (second) most important event of the year: the Phandalin Harvest Festival. 

They’re not quite the first car to arrive at the Phandalin Historic Farm and Railroad, but it’s pretty close. Actually, on second thought, the others there probably belong to the volunteers… whatever, everyone else is missing out. Pale golden light washes over the pumpkin patch as the siblings almost skip into the farm, and Magnus looks longingly at some of the pumpkins as they pass, but they’ll be back later. They’re on a _mission._

The cornfield is on the far end of the park from the pumpkin patch, dense and golden-green and buzzing with insects. Magnus and Lucretia survey their prey, then nod decisively at each other as they roll down the sleeves of their flannel shirts - Magnus’s a warm red, Lucretia’s a deep blue. Burlap sacks in hand, they split up. Lucretia, with a better eye for colors, is after the ornamental flint corn. Magnus, with slightly different priorities, is going for the popcorn. 

They spend an hour, maybe two, wading through the cornfield in search of the _best_ corn. It’s sweaty and itchy work, pushing aside heavy stalks of corn and avoiding scratches from the rough leaves and husks. But they emerge triumphant, hefting full sacks of corn that they collapse besides with an air of victory. Then they spend the next half hour carefully sorting - after all, they’re college students, and their apartment really isn’t big enough for quite this much corn. As they decide which ears are worthy decorations or snacks, and the sun rises high in the sky, more and more people trickle into the farm, venturing bravely into the cornfield. Most are familiar faces - Raven’s Roost and Phandalin aren’t large towns, and the Harvest Festival is the event of the season in these parts. Merle Highchurch, the local doctor, stands out in particular. He’s utterly dwarfed by the towering cornstalks, but that doesn’t stop him from running full tilt into the plants. Hopefully they won’t have to send anyone in to find him before the farm closes this year. 

Their loot assessed and the unworthy donated to the bins for animal feed, Magnus and Lucretia wander back into the farm at a more relaxed pace. A quiet “psst!” draws Lucretia toward the cooking area, where her friend Noelle is cheerfully running a cider press. She’s quickly pulled into a huddle with Paloma, who’s still stirring a bowl of cornmeal scone batter, and Carey and Killian, who are covered in wool from helping out Istus, the local high school art teacher and current 1860s-era gentlewoman. Their voices are muffled by the chugging and sputtering of the old gas-powered grain mill run by Avi, who gives them a wink and revs the engine at convenient intervals. 

Eyes fixed across the yard, Noelle asks, “Okay, place your bets. I think he’s going to do the awkward stuttering thing again.”

“Nah,” Carey says dismissively. “Maybe this year is the year. I think he’s got this.”

Paloma grins and nods wisely. “Fourth time’s the charm!”

Lucretia says nothing and tries not to giggle as she watches Magnus oh-so-casually wander his way toward the blacksmith’s shop. The sound of hammering metal quiets and a very pretty girl, dark hair tied back and sleeves rolled up strong arms, appears at the door. Julia is an assistant instructor at Magnus’s trade school, helping out in the metalworking shop. This is her fourth year volunteering at the Harvest Festival. This is Magnus’s fourth attempt to ask her to go on some kind of adorable fall-themed date. 

They watch for a few moments as Magnus attempts awkward small talk, which soon evolves into an actual conversation that both parties seem to be enjoying. After a few minutes, Julia laughs at a joke Magnus makes, and Killian wolf-whistles from across the farmyard. Magnus turns and glares, flipping her off in a way that he probably thinks Julia can’t see. She just laughs and pulls Magnus toward her, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. He blushes bright red as the entire onlooking group bursts into cheers, but walks away with Julia’s number scribbled on a scrap of paper. 

Magnus gets his revenge moments later when Paloma’s bakery partner Ren returns to their stand from where she’d been passing out cookies. “Noelle, uh, hey!” she says, smiling shyly, “Business is runnin’ a little slow over here and Magnus said you knew a good apple scone recipe? I’d love to hear it!”

“Oh- yeah- hang on, let me just-“ Noelle stands abruptly, accidentally knocking over the basket of apples beside her. “Oh, shoot-“ 

“Oops, let me-“ Ren crouches to help her gather them, and as they both reach for the last one their hands brush. Noelle blushes as red as her hair, and Ren freezes but then beams, grabbing her hand to help pull Noelle up. They sit down together on a hay bale to talk apples, close enough to brush shoulders, and both look much happier than discussions of wheat versus white flour would usually inspire. 

Lucretia pulls Magnus away from the budding romance and past the large Victorian farmhouse at the center of the property. Set back against a sweeping lawn, the farmhouse is an elegant patch of quiet in the bustle of the Harvest Festival. The silence is broken only by the whirring of a spinning wheel on the front porch, and the cheery greeting of the woman in full period attire using it.

“Hey, I was almost worried you wouldn’t show this year!” Istus calls. “Just kidding, I knew you would. How’s life? Got a dog yet?” She doesn’t look up from her task at hand, carefully twisting raw wool into unnaturally even yarn. Other knitting, sewing, and lacemaking projects lay in a rough orbit around her. 

Magnus frowns, half-serious. “No, not yet, because _someone,_” he jokingly glares at Lucretia, “cares about things like _rental contracts_ and _potential eviction._”

“After college,” Lucretia promises. “When we can afford housing that won’t kick us out for having one. Or maybe…” she adds, a glint in her eye. Istus leans closer, intrigued. “…if, say _Julia_ happens to like dogs…”

“Okay, nope, bye!” Magnus yelps, dragging Lucretia away. Istus cackles gleefully.

“Oh, what have you gotten up to now?” a warm, refined voice calls from the doorway of the house. Out steps a glamorous woman in a deep black Victorian gown and elegantly pinned hair, contrasting crisply against Istus’s pale dress as she leans down to give her wife a kiss on the cheek.

“Definitely not dogs! And not romance! At all! Bye!” Magnus continues squeaking. His escape has gotten slower, as Lucretia has all but collapsed laughing, her feet dragging in the grass. 

“Hi Raven! Bye Raven!” she wheezes. “Tell Johann we said hi!”

“Oh, I see how it is,” a faint yell comes from the interior of the house, cutting off the faint strains of violin music drifting across the lawn. “Tell me yourself!”

“HI JOHANN! BYE JOHANN!” Magnus and Lucretia yell in unison, and then both crack up laughing. They stumble off the lawn, Raven shaking her head slowly but with a hint of a smile on her face. 

They’re still laughing as the sounds of tweeting birds are replaced by the sounds of hammering metal and chugging engines. They’ve reached the Phandalin Railyard, home to restored and even running nineteenth-century steam trains. As well as the ragtag group of individuals who run and maintain them. 

“Hey guys!” their neighbor Gandy yells from her perch on top of an old boxcar, hanging over the car with a paintbrush in hand. Her overalls and ponytail are spattered with paint and oil, but she looks right at home in the railyard. 

“Hey! How’s the weather up there?” Magnus yells, as Lucretia groans. Gandy just smiles. 

“Sunny and beautiful, and first row seats for the shows!” she calls, the second part as a quieter aside. She gestures toward the station proper, where two very different and equally entertaining events are occurring. 

Hurley and Sloane, two frequent restoration volunteers, have commandeered the farm’s two handcars. They’ve loaded each with nearly a dozen children, and are locked in a heated race on parallel stretches of track. There is a lot of yelling, mostly the excited screams of children interspersed with the cheerful jibes between the two engineers as they pump the handles up and down. The children are all enthusiastically involved, some perhaps too much - Lucretia spots at least one whose feet lift off the ground every time their handle rises. But Hurley and Sloane know what they’re doing, and soon Lucretia and Magnus have joined the crowd cheering them on. 

Hurley wins, by the tiniest of margins, and is mobbed by a mass of cheering kids. One show over, the siblings turn to the next, taking place much more quietly - but no less entertainingly - on the station platform.

The stars of this show: Kravitz, Raven’s son and conductor of the Historic Phandalin Railroad. He’s in full formal uniform, whistle and all. And on stage right, their friend Taako, in the frilled shirt and crisp attire of a highwayman of story and song. He is, apparently, attempting to rob the train, and is surrounded by enough enthusiastic children that Kravitz really has no choice but to go along with it. 

“Now, this can all be over, and we can go on our merry ways,” Taako gestures dramatically, or maybe every gesture just looks dramatic with sleeves that puffy, “if you just hand over _the goods!_”

“But I— you ne’er-do-well — you _ruffian,_ you _vagabond,_” Kravitz stutters exaggeratedly, before dropping into a whisper, “_Taako, we don’t keep our fu- freaking ice cream on the train!_”

“Hmmm, perhaps we can come to a compromise,” Angus McDonald says, emerging from the mob of children, twirling an obvious fake gun and gesturing with just as frilly sleeves. 

Kravitz glares, looking betrayed. “Lup put you up to this,” he says accusingly.

“Yup!” Angus chirps guilelessly. “She and Dad wanted to go pick pumpkins so I have to babysit Uncle Taako, keep him out of trouble, you know.”

Taako spins around to face his nephew, also looking betrayed. “Now, that was _not_ the way I heard it, mister… Actually, though…” And he grins, turning to Kravitz with a gleeful glint in his eye. “Maybe we _can_ compromise.”

Kravitz nods, grinning. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”

“Something like that!” Together, they spin to face Angus, fake weapons drawn, and where did Taako get a _sword?_ “Hands in the air!”

“You’ll never take me alive!” Angus wails, and he sprints down the length of the train. Taako follows, hurdling over benches, as Kravitz hangs back to manage the mob. 

“Kids, ya’know?” He says, shrugging, when Magnus and Lucretia catch his eye. They shrug and nod back, and make mental notes to laugh later at how hopeless Taako and Kravitz are together. Angus is the real MVP of their relationship - they’d never have made it past awkward flirting without his extremely thorough detective-ing and even more thorough meddling. 

By now, the sun is hanging low in the sky, casting warm shadows over the farm, and Lucretia and Magnus have one stop left. Saying their goodbyes, they make their way out to the pumpkin patch. Children dart across the rows of vines, looking for the perfect pumpkin, the best potential jack-o-lantern. At least one kid is trying to move a pumpkin that has to weigh more than they do, to the delight and exasperation of their parents. 

Proper pumpkin picking is both an art and a science, and Magnus and Lucretia weigh the pros and cons of each they come across. Eventually, Magnus has found a collection of beautifully round, smooth pumpkins - perfect for carving. Lucretia finds one that’s large and golden and lumpy like the moon. As they traverse the parch, they catch glimpses of Barry and Lup, who are up to some shenanigans - a number of people are taking advantage of the lovely fall aesthetic by having small photoshoots in the patch. Lup and Barry, meanwhile, have commandeered a number of scarecrows and pumpkins and are setting up little dioramas around the area. So far, there’s what appears to be a scarecrow wedding, a soccer game, and some kind of ritual sacrifice. At least they made sure that one wasn’t in the background of what appears to be an engagement photoshoot. Some of the teenagers are having a really great time posing with them, too. 

Arms full of pumpkins and corn, Lucretia and Magnus make their tired way back to their car, to start the trip back home into the real world. The Phandalin Harvest Festival feels like stepping out of time, into a world of magic and history and everything fall, and it’s a wonderful respite from reality. But every good thing must come to an end, and there’s plenty to do back home in the 21st century. 

After all, it’s only a month until Halloween.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is maybe the most self indulgent thing I’ve written ever. I have had a very busy and exhausting summer, haven’t really had a chance or inspiration to write in about six months, and have been generally extremely low on spoons. Combine that with the fact that fall is by far my favorite season, and Halloween my favorite holiday, and I am currently in the southern hemisphere where it is not fall and in a country that doesn’t do Halloween… it’s been a rough time, and will probably continue to be so for a while. So here, have whatever this is. This takes place in a real place, by the way, just with an obviously different name. My parents restored trains there when I was a kid, and my sister and I basically ran loose on the grounds. Lots of good memories, and also if you’ve read any of my Gandy stuff this was definitely one of the roots of my interest in her general historical context. Anyway, happy fall, and if you’re somewhere that they’re in season, pick some corn and carve some pumpkins for me!


End file.
